For those who’ve been out looking at property throughout 2021 it’s been a year of head scratching for most. Are we not still in a pandemic? Who can afford to purchase at these insanely high prices? When will prices drop, and when they do, how bad will it be?

All are reasonable questions and the answers I’m afraid are simple, but truthful. 

Let’s look at the pandemic question first. This one is well documented that very few people who could afford to buy our real estate, have been affected greatly during this pandemic. Add into the mix dirt cheap interest rates along with no where else to spend your money, and clarity starts to appear. As long as we are semi locked down and money is cheap, the rich will continue to get richer.

Who can afford to buy at these crazy prices? Well continuing on with the above noted reasoning there is a segment of society that is funnelling their excess cash into real estate. Investment property, second home property, or taking advantage of cheap money and moving up to a more suitable house. These are the people that are partaking in the current market place.

Now for the tough one, and the one I can honestly say I don’t exactly know. When will prices drop and how bad will it be? I can’t see a drop being that bad but that being said real estate is hyper locale and not easy to forecast. Actually if you pay close attention, almost always forecasts are incorrect and often adjusted to reflect this. If immigration picks up where we were pre covid then I can’t see much of a drop in values. I’ve seen calls for 400,000 new immigrants per year for the next three years. A million new people to house is no easy task. A city like Toronto for instance, can only build so much and how much of this is what buyers actually want? Toronto’s share of the immigration numbers can be even tougher to predict. How will our economy bounce back after covid is behind us?

Is it the right time to buy or move is a personal choice that can have many variables attached. But trying to time the market just doesn’t work. Low supply doesn’t help and this year is worse than last year on that front. And we’ve had more sales year-to-date as well. It will be interesting to see how this plays out once covid is no longer distracting us.